COVID -19 UPDATE: Band Rehearsals And Performances

Greetings,

I hope this message finds you all safe and healthy. I wanted to give everyone the most up to date information about our start to the new academic year. 

As you all know Twiggs County Public Schools has made the decision to suspend all activities including the marching band until further notice. As your new director, The staff and I have spent many hours trying to find a viable way to make marching band work for our program. We have reached out to some of the finest bands in the country to see what they were doing and how it may work for us. 

We’ve exhausted every effort to “make it work”. However, we will not put our students in a situation that may cause harm to themselves or their familes. It is simply not worth the risk. Therefore I have cancelled bandcamp and all summer activities. Any marching band rehearsals and/or performances are being reevaluated on a weekly basis. I can not say that we will not have a marching season or not, however, if it does happen, it will look very different than years past.

So what’s next?…

If we have a football season this fall the band will support the school by providing entertainment in the stands. This new role as a “pep band” will limit our exposure to COVID-19 by cutting our rehearsal time in half. 

We also want to give every student the absolute best musical opportunity possible no matter the obstacles in front of us. The concert and jazz band programs are still a go. Students who are enrolled in band class will be assigned to one or, in some cases, both of those bands. We are still hopeful we can  participate in Concert Performance Assessment, Region/All State auditions, and also Solo and Ensemble. It’s never too early to start preparing for these events and this will be our primary focus during this first 9 weeks of virtual band class. I will be sharing all of these materials and audition requirements to you in our class syllabus.

Virtual Band Class will begin August 17th and will follow the normal school day schedule, however, we may modify this schedule as our state guigelines change. When you receive your class schedule in the mail pay close attention to your band class start time. The schedule permits for you to log on 5 mins early for each class. I suggest you do, just to make sure all audio and video is working well. 

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me. I look forward to being your band leader this year and for years to come! 🙂

Ernest Stackhouse

Director of Fine Arts/Band Director

Twiggs County Public Schools